When Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law in April 2010, the reaction about its potential negative impact on tourism in Arizona was immediate. With today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding part of the law and striking down most of it, reactions are more subdued.

“The Supreme Court has made their ruling and as a state we move forward,” read a statement by the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association. The court upheld the lawfulness of police inquiring about a person’s immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion the person is not in the country legally. Three other provisions were struck down.

The association’s CEO Debbie Johnson could not say what effect the court’s decision would have, if any at all.

“We don’t know what kind of an impact that (decision) will have,” she said. “All that we can do on our end is to continue to... welcome visitors to Arizona.”

Johnson said the law definitely had a negative impact in 2010 after it was passed, but that the Lodging and Tourism Association did not do an official study on that impact, and had no information on how deeply Arizona was affected.

Both the Scottsdale and Greater Phoenix convention and visitors bureaus and the Phoenix Convention Center all deferred their reaction to the Lodging and Tourism Association, using the same official statement to express their organizations’ view of the decision.

The fervor over SB 1070 died down by the end of 2010, but recent media coverage of the Supreme Court case has left some uncertainty about the law’s long-term impact.

In May, Rachel Pearson, spokeswoman for the Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, did not see SB 1070 as still being an issue for tourism in Arizona.

Click below for the rest of the story.

Read More at

Industries:

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.